John Carr - He Who Whispers

Rigaud, perched on the edge of a side-table, bending forward eagerly with his hand cupped behind his ear, returned a violent negative.

“To the best of my knowledge, dear doctor, this name is completely new to me.”

“Harry Brooke never even mentioned him to you?”

“Never.”

“Nor”—Dr. Fell tapped the manuscript—“is he mentioned in this admirably clear narrative of yours. Even the attached affidavits, of other witnesses concerned, make no reference to him. Yet Harry Brooke was writing to him on the very day—” Dr. Fell was silent for a moment. Was it an effect of the light, that momentary expression about his eyes? “Never mind!” he said. “Go on!”

Yet Miles saw the same expression there again, briefly, before he finished his story. Dr. Fell's look had been that of a man dazed, startled, half blinking at the sight of truth, and yet in it there were elements of sheer horror. That was what was so unnerving. All the time that Miles went on speaking mechanically, frantic thoughts ran across the inner screen of his mind.

Dr. Fell couldn't believe, of course, in this nonsense about vampires. Professor Rigaud might sincerely credit the reality of evil spirits inhabiting flesh, evil spirits that could leave the body and materialize high in the air, with their white faces outside windows.

But not Dr. Fell. That could be taken for granted! All Miles wanted was to hear him say so.

All Miles wanted was a word, a gesture, a twinkle in the eye, which should blow away this poisonous mist which Georges Antoine Rigaud would call the mist of the vampire. “Come, now! Come now! Archons of Athens!”--in uproarious delight. A twitch of the several chins, a shaking of the huge waistcoat, the old-time familiar amusement as Gideon Fell rolled back in the chair, hammering the ferrule of a stick against the floor.

And Miles was not getting that word.

Instead, as Miles finished speaking, Dr. Fell sat back with a hand shading his eyes, and the bloodstained sword-stick across his lap.

“That is all?” he inquired.

“Yes. That's all.”

“Oh, ah. And to you, my friend”--Dr Fell had to clear his throat powerfully before he addressed Rigaud—“I should like to put a vitally important question.” He held up the manuscript. “When you wrote this, of course, you chose your words with care?”

Professor Rigaud drew himself up stiffly.

“Is it necessary to say that I did?”

“You wouldn't wish to change any of it?”

“No, I assure you! Why should I?”

“Let me read you,” sad Dr. Fell persuasively, “two or three lines from your account of the last time you saw Mr. Howard Brooke, on top of the tower, before he was attacked.”

“Well?”

Dr. Fell moistened his thumb, adjusted his eyeglasses on the black ribbon, and leafed back through the manuscript.

“'Mr. Brooke,'” he read aloud. “'was standing by the parapet, his back uncompromisingly turned. On one side of him—'”

“Excuse me for interrupting,” said Miles, “but those sound like exactly the same words Professor Rigaud used last night when he was telling it instead of writing it.”

“They are the same words,” smiled Professor Rigaud. “it flowed trippingly, yes? It was memorized. Anything I spoke to you, young man, will also be found in that manuscript. Continue, continue, continue!”

Dr. Fell eyed him curiously.

“'On one side oh him'—you are still describing Mr. Brooke—' on one side of him his cane, of light yellowish-coloured wood, was propped upright against the parapet. On the other side of him, also resting against the parapet, was the bulging brief-case . Round the tower-top this battlemented parapet ran breast-high, its stone broken, crumbling, and scored with whitish hieroglyphics where people had cut their initials.'”

Dr. Fell closed up the manuscript and tapped it again.

“That,” he demanded, “is all accurate?”

“But perfectly accurate!”

“Only one other small thing,” begged Dr. Fell. “It's about this sword-stick. You say in your lucid account that the police, after the murder took away the two halves of the sword-stick for expert examination. I presume the police didn't ft them together before removing them? They were taken away just as found?”

“But naturally!”

Miles couldn't stand it any longer.

“For God's sake, sir, let's get things straight! Let's know at least what we think and where we are!” His voice went up.

“You don't believe all this, do you?”

Dr. Fell blinked at him. “Believe what?”

“Vampires!”

“No,” Dr. Fell said gently. “ don't believe it.”

(Miles had known it all along, of course. He told himself this, with a small inner laugh, while he settled his mental shoulders and prepared to laugh aloud. But the breath rushed out of his lungs, and he felt a hot wave of relief over his whole body at the realization that there could be no terrors now.)

“It is only far to say that,” Dr. Fell went on gravely, “before we leave. This wild night ride to the New Forest, on a—harrumph!—a sudden romantic impulse of Rigaud's, who also wanted to see your uncle's library, is one that two elderly gentlemen will regret when they arrive back in London. But before we do go . . .”

“By the powers of all evil,” said Miles with some vehemence, “you're not going back tonight?”

“Not going back tonight?”

“I'm going to put you up here,” said Miles, “in spite of the shortage of habitable bedrooms. I want to see you both in daylight and feel sane again. And my sister Marion! When she hears the rest of my story . . .!”

“Your sister already knows something about it?”

“A little, yes. Come to think of it, I asked her tonight what she would do if she met a . . . well, a supernatural horror that could walk on air. And that was even before I'd heard the vampire story.”

“Indeed!” murmured Dr. Fell. “And what did she say she would do?”

Miles laughed.

“She sad she'd probably fire a revolver at it. The only sensible thing is to be just as amused as Marion was.” He bowed to Professor Rigaud. “I thank you deeply, sir, for coming all this distance to put me on my guard against a vampire with white face and blood-bedabbled mouth. But it seems to me that Fay Seton as had a bad enough time already. And I scarcely think . . .”

He broke off.

The sound they all heard then came from upstairs and a little distance away. But it was magnified by the night stillness. It was shattering and unmistakable. It made Professor Rigaud stiffen as he sat on the edge of the little side-table. It caused a twitch through Dr. Fell's vast bulk, so that his eyeglasses tumbled off his nose and the pieces of the sword-cane slowly slid to the floor. All three men were motionless, not lifting a hand. It was the sound of a pistol-shot.

Chapter X

Professor Rigaud spoke first, kicking his heels. The sardonic expression flickered in his face before it was veiled, and he looked at Miles.

“Yes, my friend?” he suggested politely. “I beg of you to continue this interesting statement! Your sister is amused, much amused, when she thinks of . . .” But he could not keep on in this strain. His gruff voice grew shaky as he glanced at Dr. Fell. “Are you, dear doctor, thinking what I am thinking?”

“No!” thundered Dr. Fell, and broke the tensity. “No, no, no, no!”

Professor Rigaud shrugged his shoulders.

“For myself, I find it seldom helpful to call a thing improbable after it has actually happened.” He looked at Miles. “Does you sister own a revolver?”

“Yes! But . . .”

Miles got to his feet.

He wouldn't, he said to himself, make a disgraceful exhibition of himself by starting to run: though Rigaud's countenance was a mottled white and even Dr. Fell had close his hands suddenly round the arms of the tapestry chair. Miles walked out of the room into the dark reception-hall. It was on the staircase, the enclose staircase leading to the upstairs hall, that he did begin to run.